Help me counter my rationalization

[bin]

after an inpatient stay at a mental hospital last november i was enrolled in a "partial program", 6 hours of classes in DBT and CBT topics for 10 days total. surprisingly i was quite enjoying myself in the classes, and despite the subject matter coming off as pretty obvious if you just thought about it for 2 minutes, we always had some great peer discussions as a group.

2 days into the program and my beloved girlfriend broke up with me, seemingly out of nowhere. i held on for a day or two, using prescribed amphetamines at a non-prescribed dosage in order to keep calm and hold off the imminent implosion of my mind. i think it's somewhat of a vice to identify too strongly with psych diagnoses but since this story i've learned that i'm afflicted with BPD.. so yeah i've got a shamefully high sensitivity and low tolerance for heartbreak. and the breakup just sent me from 0% to 90% suicidal real fuckin quick.

back at the partial program 2 days post-breakup and one of the classes is based on the topic of "chain analysis", basically choosing a problematic behavior from your life and mapping out the events/choices leading up to it and the consequences leading from it, the conclusion of the lesson being basically "consider how the consequences of an action will affect your life before executing it". i'm thinking, yeah, no shit lol. so teacher asks us to come up with an example behavior from our own lives to share with the class so we can analyze it together and demonstrate the framework. so i spoke up and said what was on my mind, that i had been considering suicide. teacher told me that this was an absolutely inappropriate topic for discussion and that i needed to leave the class… that made me feel pretty shitty since i was really hoping to get something of consequence out of that program, i really wanted to put my ideas up for scrutiny and maybe learn something :-(

so my "stunt" ended up getting me section 12'ed, that is forcibly readmitted to the inpatient hospital, which turned into another 4 week stay. fucking shitty. plus i get to pay off the bills from that useless stay over the next several years, lovely!

anyway, the chain analysis thing ended up sticking in my mind and i've thought about it within the context of suicide. given that the framework centers around a single and continuous subject that lives through the events before and after the action, the logic of weighing the decision based on its outcomes really falls apart if that action is suicide. because, subjectively, there are no consequences to consider. actually the word "subjectively" doesn't even make sense in that sentence, given that death means the dissolution of the subject altogether.

everyone on this forum has heard this phrase before: "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem". as annoying as it is, the phrase does hit a valid point, assuming that human suffering is predictable as ocean tides. but i think that it totally misses another, much more consequential point, that suicide is not only a permanent solution to temporary problems, but a permanent solution to the set of all possible problems, past, present, and future. a problem cannot exist until some subject realizes something as problematic. remove the subject from the equation and there is no way for new problems to be created or past problems to persist.

i do realize that all of this philosophizing comes off as pretentious and very self-centered.. it doesn't consider how one's suicide could affect the people that know/love them. it takes as fact that consciousness ceases with death. it's just something that's been taking up space in my mind lately and it's kind of cathartic to write down and share it to you guys.

i'm wondering if you guys have anything to counter any of what i said or anything to add that i haven't considered?

- bin :-)

 

[wisteria3]

Wow, I hate how taboo it is to bring up suicide. I get the legal reasons and the social contagion reasons, but it sucks that you can't have a rational discussion about it without getting into trouble.

Yes, I feel like I've had almost that exact same thought as you. I agree, it's a permanent solution to all future and current problems. In my opinion, I've never come across a convincing philosophical argument that says human life is beneficial considering only the person's wellbeing (rather than the wellbeing of society, or their loved ones). Not that I read much philosophy, but I do like to think about it and come up with my own conclusions. One time I was so desperate for some rational reason not to die that I asked ChatGPT if there are any philosophical arguments against antinatalism, and it only came up with reasons that considered the rights/happiness of parents and the wellbeing of society. It couldn't come up with any argument solely based on what would benefit the child. (Not of course that this is a rigorous search in any way lol)

Suffering is a requirement for happiness. Even really rich people who could have anything they want become depressed when they aren't fulfilled. You can't be fulfilled unless you challenge yourself and overcome those challenges/problems, which requires a lot of struggle and despair. It's a lot of continuous work being happy, it's not like you could ever "not have problems."

 

[Hvergelmir]

I'm sorry to hear about the failure to open a rational discussion.
It sounds like you want your conclusions and thought patterns challenged, so I'll try to make that happen.

To evaluate a solution you need to put it in relation to a problem.
To declare suicide a good solution, it must be compared to other solutions.

You present suicide as a solution to all past and future problems. And this is were I think your logic breaks down.

Everything is based off the assumption that your immediate observation is the only thing that has importance. While logically sound, it can be used to justify not just suicide, but literally anything as long as you avoid negative personal consequences.
Your philosophy simply boils down to: "We can be egoists, completely disregarding everything beside our own wellbeing."
And yes we can. But is that what we want? Surely there must be better philosophies, even from a purely egotistical perspective.

I'd argue that suicide won't affect past problems. History is full of atrocities, and will continue to be full of them. Your continued ability to acknowledge this is irrelevant.
I'd also argue that the idea of solving all future problems is naive at best. You don't know what the problems are, and you don't know what solutions you would have had at your disposal. Thus it becomes impossible to evaluate. There's no way of knowing if your presence would be desirable or not.

I'm not opposing suicide as a solution to any set of specific problems. I am however strongly opposing the idea of it being a solution to an arbitrary set of undefined problems.
In comparison living isn't a solution, but a very versatile strategy, which can be adapted as more information arrives.

I'm also opposing the idea that suffering is a requirement for happiness. On the contrary it appears harder to be happy, the more you suffer. Also, money enables opportunities and solutions, and helps a lot in many areas.

 

[bin]

Suffering is a requirement for happiness.

i'm so fond of Carl Jung's quote,
"No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots are in hell."

 

[bin]

To evaluate a solution you need to put it in relation to a problem.
To declare suicide a good solution, it must be compared to other solutions.

I definitely agree with you here, and i'm so frustrated at how my mind will immediately jump to considering suicide wherever my life's goals or peace of mind are disturbed.. it's like there's a certain suicidal circuit in my brain that's been traversed and burned in so many times and is so well connected to the rest of my system that it's inevitably activated (and further strengthened) every single day. it's very hard to pull out of that mental attractor and start from a broader perspective that includes a more positive solution space to search over.

it feels as though i'm always sent straight into emergency mode, and that switch is set on a hair-trigger. everything feels incredibly urgent, and only actions that offer immediate relief can be considered. i think what i've been trying to do by thinking philosophically about suicide in my more clear-headed moments is to coax my rational side into agreement so that it won't raise any alarms and cause me to hesitate during those impulse-driven moments when i'm liable to actually attempt suicide.

living isn't a solution, but a very versatile strategy, which can be adapted as more information arrives.

i love your idea of "living as a strategy". i think this is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, the capacity to overcome impulsive problem solving. we can simulate many different solutions via thought and execute the one that best agrees with our wisdom. but this system is built over top of the impulsive system, and gets switched off to a considerable degree under stress..

thank you for sharing your critical thoughts about my take on suicide. as long as there are unanswered questions in my head there's a good chance that my rational mind will cause me hesitation when i'm on the brink and i'll stay around to consider it a bit longer.

 

[wisteria3]

I just wanted to clarify what I meant by "suffering is a requirement for happiness" - I meant that no one can be happy without also having struggles. In my opinion, happiness requires you to overcome challenges that feel fulfilling. Otherwise, we would just require hedonism for happiness. For example, maybe you find happiness from your job, which let's say involves coding. When writing a piece of code, it's probably difficult at first and you have to go through struggle, failure, even despair before figuring it out. If it was too easy, you wouldn't feel good about yourself. That's what I meant - you can't be ONLY happy all the time, without encountering problems. But in general, happy people feel that the joy they get from life is worth the struggle.

So in that sense, suicide feels like a permanent solution to a permanent set of problems. And rationally, you won't miss the joys of life after you are dead, so suicide does seem rational. It doesn't seem like there is any rational argument to live. The only counterargument I have come up with is to abandon rationality :) Maybe this means having faith in a religion, or faith in something else "bigger than you". If you are skeptical of religion like me, you can still have faith in the fact that there is so much that we don't know because our minds are limited. For example, we can't really prove that we perceive the universe correctly. We don't even know why the universe follows logic at all, and logic is a required even for philosophical statements. I think faith is a choice, so if you can't find a "logical" reason to live but want one, it's really as simple as choosing to believe that life is worth it for reasons we can't comprehend. I don't know if this helps or hurts or even makes sense, but just some thoughts :) And if you do find a rational argument for living... let me know lol (other than living for others, like to reduce the suffering of others, which I think is the most valid reason)